Very few people haven’t heard of S. E. Hinton, a young adult genre author who makes the required reading list in most if not all English classrooms. She is famous for having penned the new-classic short novel The Outsiders as well as Tex, Rumble Fish, and That Was Then This Is Now. All were written from the perspective of young adults and were/are very popular among that crowd.

Now that the history lesson is covered, I’ll get down to business. Hinton didn’t publish anything for many years after Taming the Star Runner and rumors circulated that she had essentially retired after her short but glorious run. (Dropping off the page for 16 years can do that.) Then in 2005 came the dark and wholly unexpected Hawke’s Harbor, the newest spine on my bookshelf.

I’ll make no bones about it, I loved S. E. Hinton and, as a child and young adult, read everything of her hand I could find. I scanned the pages of The Outsiders more times than I can remember and even voluntarily wrote an essay on the book in middle school. But then came Hawke’s Harbor, and I was unsure. I passed it by on Amazon and in the local bookstore, wary of her new work, suspicious that it would be yet another dreadful “comeback novel” and could never live up to my old favorites. But like nearly every book published, a few copies of it eventually wound up in the bookstore’s bargain bin. And I, desperate for new reading material (as usual), could not resist the temptation of a bargain.

My worries firmly in place, I began to read … and found out that I could not have been more wrong. Hawke’s Harbor is a gorgeous, touching story. It quickly found its way into my cubby of favorites on the bookshelf and slid its hooks deftly into my heart. But it is totally unlike her earlier works. Had I not known, her name would never have entered my mind on a list of possible authors. Perhaps the greatest shock was the inclusion of a vampire in the plot, which could not be more removed from what she wrote about in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This bit of supernatural did not sit well with many of her former fans but, in all honesty, it was so well wrought I didn’t mind. That’s not to say I wasn’t surprised, and still a bit disappointed; and I seriously questioned whether or not I’d made a mistake picking this dark story from the bargain bin. Apparently this also threw a lot of other readers who were expecting another Tex or Rumble Fish. Because serious readers – we minority of dedicated, avid consumers of words, we Constant Readers – treasure our books like great friends, and treasure the authors of those books like loved ones. So when someone drops off the publishing map for a decade and a half and re-emerges with a totally different and unexpected voice, it can be very personal.

Think of it as if a loved one were in a bad accident and fell into a coma. And at first the doctors were very optimistic for a full recovery … but as the months and then years wore on, a darker prognosis appeared. And you resigned yourself to losing this loved one. You wanted the coma to break and for that person to open their eyes and be every bit the person they were before … but you understood the chances of that were infintesimal. Then one fine day that loved one stirred and opened their eyes. And the doctors cried, “Come quick!” And you rushed to their bedside with a great wild hope galloping through your veins … only to find that this loved one didn’t remember you. Or themselves. And watching them recover is like watching a stranger, and that it is somehow worse than losing them to a coma, or even to death. Because there they are, right there, you can reach out and touch them … but it isn’t the person you knew.

That probably sounds ridiculous. And of course not everyone is so effected, but many are. And it is so personal to them that it feels like a betrayal, willful or not. Authors who publish fairly regularly and whose voices change slowly over time have a much greater advantage. S. E. Hinton did most certainly not have that advantage and the reviews of this book prove it. So, just for the record, let me state that this is nothing like her earlier work … except that it is still a striking, moving story. Despite my misgivings, I loved it. It is hard to explain but the vampire thread did not discredit the story or the characters, who practically breathe and move on the page (and this from a reader who has avoided every other vampire story I have ever come across because I simply detest them). I loved it.

In closing, I offer a word of advice: If you pick this book up expecting it to be anything like her other books, you will be disappointed. Because Hinton has a new voice. It is still unerringly beautiful and wrenching but in a very different way. She has changed, as have we all.

After visiting a friend’s blog, I discovered that I had completely forgotten Mother’s Day. I’m not a mother myself, and have no mother or maternal relations, so I often forget. But I think fathers are getting a raw deal.

Mother’s Day gets splashed all over the television, newspapers, and internet advertising like a second Christmas. You’re encouraged to buy jewelry, flowers, flashy cards, expensive dinner reservations, vacations, etc. But come Father’s Day, what do advertisements push? A lawnmower. A leafblower. A new golf club. What’s Dad likely to get? Some god-awful tie and a pair of socks or, if he’s lucky, a wrench set. And since Father’s Day comes about six weeks later, all the money seems to get sucked up by Mother’s Day and the Memorial Day binge that marks the beginning of summer.

What’s left for dear old Dad?

I don’t enjoy the commercialization of holidays but I do think it can be a useful indicator of our society, namely in that the level of commercialization is dependent on how important that holiday is rated. And Mother’s Day would blow Father’s Day right out of the water any day of the week. I’m not against mothers (please, how could anyone be?) but I think fathers are becoming more and more marginalized in our society. Their roles are considered expendable.

Movies, television, and commercials paint men as lust-hungry fools. And while, true, some men are lust-hungry fools, many are not. Nor are fathers’ roles quaint but expendable.

With relatively few restrictions, single mothers can draw thousands of dollars in local, state, and federal aid each year to supplement their household, in addition to receiving various other subsidies. Single fathers often can’t. Two people, of identical race, income, background, number of children, medical issues, etc., are judged unequally based on gender alone.

The man is expected to work and bring home a paycheck whether he is trying to raise children alone or not. With that check he is expected to pay the rent, or mortgage, and utility bills; keep food on the table; pay medical, dental, and optometry bills; provide suitable clothing, shoes, school supplies, etc.; pay for child care and or hire babysitters; make vehicle payments and provide for repairs, maintenance, and fuel costs; and, of course, pay his taxes.

The woman is expected to be a stay-at-home mother. In many cases, the state will help with or fully cover her mortgage or rent payments; pay part or all of her utility bills; provide hundreds of dollars in food stamps per child; provide full coverage for medical, dental, and optometry; pay for child care; provide transportation; and often supply her hundreds of dollars, per child, for other expenses. All tax-free, of course.

Though legislation surrounding it is slowly changing for the better, fathers are still often forgotten.

And on television sitcoms, it’s Dad who makes all the idiotic blunders, who is usually cast on a couch or behind a grill or clumsily fooling in a garage. Mom is Heroine Extraordinare while Dad is, at best, Bumbling Sidekick.

I’m all for Mother’s Day. I think parents are terribly overlooked and under-appreciated by their increasingly rude and selfish offspring in today’s world…